Scholarly Personae and Twentieth-Century Historians: Explorations of a Concept

Abstract

In this article Bosch argues in favour of an understanding of the concept of 'scientific persona' in which embodiment means more than the conclusion that everything that men and women do originates in or arises from a body. Wetenschappelijke personae en twintigste-eeuwse historici. Verkenning van een conceptBosch pleit in dit artikel voor een opvatting van het concept 'persona' waarin embodiment of belichaming meer is dan de vaststelling dat alles wat mensen doen een oorsprong heeft in of voortkomt uit een lichaam. In navolging van wetenschapshistorici en hun biografische verrichtingen ziet Bosch het worden scholarly personae: repertoires and performances of academic identity

“How excellent… for a woman”? The fellowship program of the International Federation of University Women in the interwar period

“…The fellowship allocation procedure was thus mainly dependent on criteria relative to research abilities and intellectual qualities, or, to use categories developed in Herman Paul's work, on "clusters of virtues and skills" defining "what it takes to be a scholar" (2016). If Paul's theoretical framework is insightful, other factors, such as gender, race, and class, also played an important role in establishing the reliability and credibility of an individual (Bosch 2016;Niskanen 2016).…”

“…The concept constitutes an interesting tool with which to question the link between scientific authority and legitimate knowledge (Shapin 1994), and current researchers use this concept as a means to different ends. While some focus on the epistemic virtues that are cultivated within a specific scholarly community (Paul 2016), others argue in favour of an understanding of the concept of scientific persona in which embodiment and performance play an important role (Bosch 2016), analysing the impact of social categories such as gender, class or race in order to form a picture of the ways in which a scholar's reliability and credibility are constructed. This paper borrows from the latter theoretical trends and addresses the concept of scientific persona formation from an institutional perspective.…”

When Artists Became Intellectuals: Science as a Significant Other for the Female Artistic Persona

“…To date, the exploration of the relation between gender and the persona has only begun (for example Hallberg 2012;Bosch 2016). Indeed, Herman Paul, who exemplifies his writings with mostly male Dutch historians from the 19 th century, does not to any greater extent touch upon the role of gender in his writing.…”

Constructing the persona of a Professional Historian. On Eileen Power's early career persona formation and her year in Paris, 1910-1911

“…My understanding of persona is slightly different, as I use it in the context of biography. In this, I follow historians of science such as Mineke Bosch and Elisabeth Wesseling, who foregrounded the role of gender and other categories of difference in constituting a scientific or scholarly persona (Bosch 2013;Bosch 2016;Wesseling 2003). I am similarly inspired by the work of Steven Shapin (1994), who argued that the performance of a dependable scientific self was a matter of bricolage involving many different roles and repertoires from both inside as well as outside academia.…”